AN ASSESSEMENT OF SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION PATTERN OF SECURITY OFFICES IN SULEJA LGA, NIGER STATE. A GIS-BASED APPROACH

Security challenges have dominated the discourse on the development and peaceful co-existence of any urban centre in recent times. Adequate security personnel are paramount to curbing the rate of crime. However, provision of office space is critical to their effective and efficient control of crime rate. Therefore, the study worked on an assessment of spatial pattern of security offices in Suleja LGA, Niger state, A GIS-based approach. The study identifies the spatial location of security office and examined the distribution pattern of the security offices in the study area. The study adopted GIS and statistical methods to assess the spatial distribution pattern of security offices in Suleja LGA, Niger state. The pattern of security offices distribution was determine with use of High/low clustering (Gestis-Ord General G) tool in ArcMap and ANN(average nearest neighborhood) analysis.The result of the study indicates that the area has a total number of thirty-seven (37) security offices. Findings indicate that average nearest neighbour ratio is 0.846369, has a critical value of -1.79 and P-value of 0.074 as a test of significant. Therefore, the spatial pattern of distribution of security offices in Suleja was clustered. Also, observed General G value was 0.048287 while the expected General G was 0.001094 with a test of statistic; P-value of 0.016427 and a Z-score: 2.399294 which shows that the clustering pattern is high in the study area. The study recommended more security offices should be established in the area to reduce crime incidence. This is because areas with low security offices in the study area had mostly high crime incidences compared to areas with more security offices. Equally, urban development authorities and all stakeholders in urban development should randomly include spaces for locating security offices in the urban plan of any emerging urban centre.